173% jump in arrests for turnstile jumping under Eric Adams—feeling safe?
In the second quarter of 2021, 190 people were arrested for “fare evasion.” In the interest of reviving broken windows theory from the 1980s, Mayor Eric Adams flooded the trains with cops and in the second quarter of 2022, there were 518 arrests for jumping the turnstile.
“We can no longer ignore quality-of-life issues,” Adams said. “I am again where Bratton was.” Despite this investment in tougher policing of the city’s main arteries, every violent crime but murder has spiked.
This is what all those “crazy!” police defunders and prison abolitionists are going on and on about. “Crime” is defined in a way that favors wealthy interests and powerful people. As Alec Karakatsanis wrote in 2020:
The concept of “crime” is constructed by people who have power. Throughout history, powerful people have defined “crime” in ways that benefit wealthy people and white people. For example, cocaine, marijuana, and opium were made illegal to target specific racial minorities. And even within categories of acts that are classified as “crimes,” powerful people decide where to look for those acts, when to look for them, and which ones to ignore and which to document.
For example, Andrew Cuomo never faced criminal charges for killing old people in nursing homes and trying to cover it up. And his mismanagement of MTA during his years-long pissing match with Bill de Blasio arguably ruined the trains way more than teenagers looking to get out of paying a few bucks (not to mention people who don’t have the money to).
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